Service providers, in particular health care providers, typically require their patients, clients or customers (collectively referred to herein and in the appended claims as “customers”) to “sign in” or register upon their arrival at the facility in which the particular services are to be provided. Such registration is most prevalent at health care facilities, such as medical clinics, hospitals, laboratories, medical offices, dental offices, psychiatrist offices, psychologist offices, chiropractic offices, physical therapy offices, or any other location or facility at which medical-related services are provided.
Typically, medical service providers provide their patients a simple sign-in or registration sheet. When a patient comes into a medical office, he or she goes to the front desk to “sign in” or register. The sign-in sheet is usually on a clipboard and has between fifteen (15) and twenty-five (25) spaces. The sign-in procedure has several purposes other than merely informing the service provider that a patient has arrived to see a doctor. Some providers use the sign-in sheet as a control sheet for the billing process. In such a case, the service provider personnel will write down the superbill number next to the patient name so the service provider can account for all the billing for a particular day.
The sign-in sheet is also used for tracking information, such as how many patients the service provider(s) may see a day, how many patients are there to see a particular doctor, nurse or nurse practitioner, and how much lab work is being performed. Sometimes, in the case of very common names, the sign-in sheet is used to prove which “Mary Smith” checked in on a particular day.
In a typical sign-in procedure, the patient is asked to write down his or her name, the physicians' name, and sometimes an address, a phone number, an insurance company and/or other personal information. The problem with the typical sign-in sheet is that the patient, as he or she signs in, can see all the names and other pertinent information of the patients that have been there earlier in the day. Patients coming in later the same day can see the names of those patients that have come and gone, along with all other information which might have been requested and supplied. In many prior art sign-in approaches, the receptionist will take the sign-in sheet and highlight the name of the patients as they are taken back to see the doctor. However, other patients still have the ability to read an earlier patient's name right through the highlighting, together with any other information provided on the sheet by the earlier patient.
In the past two years, we have been asked to come up with some alternatives to the sign-in sheet described above. For one customer, the idea they liked best was a simple five inch by seven inch (12.7 cm by 17.8 cm) pad that stays at the front desk. When the patient comes in, they write their name, date of birth, and any other information on a single sheet of the pad and give the sheet to the front desk receptionist. The front office staff person then puts the sheet into a simple time clock for posting arrival time. The patient chart is then pulled and put into a queue for the nurse to take the patient to the examination room. The sheets are then batched and saved in stacks for future reference, if necessary. The problem with this approach is its necessity for additional hardware (i.e., a time clock).
For another customer, a two-part carbonless form was designed. The patient signs in on the multi-lined sheet, but instead of the patient's name being highlighted as described above, a thick black marker was used to cross their name off after their chart was pulled and they were taken to an examination room. Once the sheet is full, part one is thrown away and part two is maintained as the permanent document for future reference, if necessary. Although this approach significantly improves the confidentiality of patient-provided information as compared to prior art highlighting approaches, it requires patients to press hard when entering their information, a task that may be difficult for elderly or handicapped patients, and does not permit the retention of original patient handwriting.
Therefore, a need exists for a customer registration system and corresponding method of use that maintain the confidentiality of information provided by the customer at the time of registration, that facilitate retention of original customer handwriting, and that facilitate registration by all customers, without requiring additional hardware.